


A Letter to My Sister

by aflawedfashion



Category: Defiance (TV)
Genre: Angst, Family, Gen, Sisters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-28
Updated: 2016-08-28
Packaged: 2018-08-11 10:19:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7887439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aflawedfashion/pseuds/aflawedfashion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s been one year - one year since my world was shattered, one year that I’ve been alone, one year since I last saw your face.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Letter to My Sister

It’s been one year - one year since my world was shattered, one year that I’ve been alone, one year since I last saw your face.

And today is the day that I’ve finally forced myself to say goodbye to you.

I didn’t know it could hurt this much to let someone go, but I should have known it would nearly kill me because you are my sister. You will always be my sister, my family, my rock.

I miss you more than I know how to express. Your face haunts my dreams. Your laugh is what I think of when I want to smile. And as tears threaten to fall from my eyes while I write this letter, I think of all the times you held me when I cried.

But now that’s all in the past. I need to accept that.

Fooling myself into thinking there’s still hope that we’ll see each other again makes everything seem better, makes me forget how much it hurts that I can’t see your face, can’t wrap my arms around you.

I will never laugh with my sister again.

I will never have you in my life again, but you are the most amazing sister I could have asked for. I can picture you rolling your eyes and laughing at me for saying that, but you mean so much to me, and I need to tell you that.

I need to tell you how grateful I am for everything you gave me. I didn’t always see it that way. At first I was terrified. I saw it as a burden, but now it’s different. Now I cling to the memories of our intertwined lives, even the memories of the days when it was nearly impossible to live, when we struggled just to survive. I was so scared, but I had you.

Now when I’m scared, I don’t have anyone.

That’s why I still write these letters to you, letters you will never see. This is the closest I can come to talking to you, to feeling like I still have a sister by my side who will love me and protect me unconditionally.

I may not be able to see you, but you left me with memories that I will cherish for the rest of my life.

Remember when we were kids, and we would sit in the park, looking up at the sky? You wondered if we could go to the stars just like the Votans came to Earth. I think about those days a lot lately. I know I probably shouldn’t even remember much from that far back. How old were we? But because of you, I can picture it so clearly that I can practically smell the grass.

I think about those nights so often now, but the stars have lost their appeal. I just want to sit in the grass with you. I know New York has been terraformed, and our park has almost certainly been destroyed, but I still dream of us sitting under the arch and looking up at the stars from our new home.

Why did we never do that?

No, I don’t want to think about what we should have done when we had the chance. It’s too painful. We made other memories. Remember when we rented our first apartment in Defiance, and we had to share a room because we couldn’t afford a two bedroom? At the time, I hated sharing a room like a couple of kids, but it was the last time we lived together, the last time it really was just you and me against the world.

The tears are still in my eyes, threatening to spill over, but I’m grinning now, a real grin, the kind I wouldn't even have been able to fake six months ago. I wish you could see it. I wish you could reminisce with me because these memories are the most important thing I have. Sometimes I wish I could live in them, but I’ve been learning to move on, figuring out who I am beyond you.

I often wonder the extent to which you shaped who I am. How much of me is just you reflected back through my eyes? But I know that we are not the same. I understand how you think in a way no one else ever could, but I don’t think the same way. It’s fascinating isn’t it - how we can be so linked and yet so fundamentally different?

Remember the first time we encountered a hellbug? I was terrified, but you barely flinched. It’s so clear in my mind how it didn’t faze you, how you looked at the situation so logically, trying to find the best way for us to escape, but I can _feel_ the terror that consumed me as I thought I was about to die. All I wanted to do was cry, but I wouldn’t let myself cry in front of you. I wanted you to think I was brave, but I suppose you must have known how scared I was, must have known I was putting on an act.

Thank you for being the brave one that day. I could really use some more of that bravery right now as I enter this next phase of my life without you.

I’ve gone through so many stages of grief in the last year, sometimes all in one day, but I wasn’t able to begin going forward with my life until I let myself smile at these memories instead of letting them destroy me.

So now, it almost feels like a betrayal to move on from you, to make a life you will never be a part of, but I have to, and I would hope that if I could talk to you, you would tell me I’m doing the right thing.

I don’t know what the future holds, but I want you to know that no one will ever replace you. No one ever could.

I love you.

I love you so much.

I wish with all my heart that I could hear you say that you love me too because you never gave love away easily. Coming from you, love is the most precious of gift in the world.

Remember the last time we spoke? We didn’t say the words. I don’t know how it’s possible that neither of us said it, but we didn’t. My life was being flipped upside down, and I wasn’t thinking clearly. I didn’t know what I was about to lose, but now I understand everything.

I understand because I’ve had time to think about it, more time than I ever thought I’d have. And that's the reason I first decided to write to you. It was supposed to be so simple. I just wanted to tell you that it worked, that they fixed me. They put the memories you gave me in order, and they saved my life.

It’s been a year since I was given three months to live, and I have a future now. I’m heading out into this world as a whole new person, but I don’t think you really want to hear that news.

It kills me to know that you wouldn’t want me back in your life as this… this imposter, but like I said, I understand everything now. I understand what you would never say, what you would never let yourself think.

You are my sister, but I am not yours.

When you said you wanted me to stay in Defiance, you weren’t thinking any more clearly than I was when I ran away. It would kill you to spend every day looking at my face, hearing my voice. And I can’t do that to you. I won't torture you like that because I love you more than anyone in this world.

But no matter how real it feels to me, I know I wasn’t really the girl who sat with you on the grass looking up at the stars or the woman who hugged you the day you lost the election. I can’t sit under the arch with you and live in denial over how much has changed. No matter how desperately I want to be in your life, I can’t be.

And as much as it kills me, it is best for both of us to let our sisters fade into our memories and accept our lives as they are now.

I’m not your Kenya Rosewater, but I am a Kenya Rosewater. I am a new Kenya Rosewater.

I know I inhabit a body that was once someone else’s, but I have no connection her. Her memories, her life… it’s all gone, and sometimes I feel sad for her, whoever she was, but I am not her.

I call myself Kenya Rosewater because, if I am anyone, I am Kenya Rosewater. These memories are as real to me as if I lived them, so I decided to embrace them and let them be my own. They are all I have of an identity. The doctors could have wiped my mind of your sister, but they could not bring back who I was before I became her, so without these memories, I would be nothing. I would be no one. I wouldn’t know what it was to have someone love me unconditionally. I wouldn’t have a sister, and I need you. I need the strength you gave me.

And because you will always be my sister, I promise to do your sister’s name justice. I will be someone you would be proud to call your sister.

Amanda, I wish I could actually send this to you.

I keep trying to find the right words, but the right words don’t exist for a person who shouldn’t exist.

I want to write down every memory that means so much to me. I want to keep writing until I can't see straight. It hurts so much to be this close to the end of my last letter to you, so close to saying goodbye for real.

But I have to move on.

And you have to move on too, which is why I can’t send this letter or let you know where I am. You need to let your sister go, and I know you couldn't do that if you knew about me.

This is the last time I will write a letter like this, but maybe one day we really will meet again. Maybe that isn’t a lie I tell myself to feel better.

I’m laughing now as I wipe away the tears that I’ve been trying to hold back this whole time. I was supposed to say goodbye, but I’m not doing a very good job, am I? I keep repeating that I need to let you go, but now, when the time has come, I can’t do it. I have to hold on to the hope that we will meet again one day.

So until then… Goodbye, Amanda.

Love,

Kenya

P.S. I heard about the fall of the Earth Republic. Congratulations, Madam Mayor! I am so proud of you.


End file.
